Bombay HC Halts Friday Screening Of Netflix Docu-Series On Indrani Mukerjea

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday halted the screening of docu-series, ‘The Indrani Mukerjea Story: The Buried Truth’, scheduled to premiere on streaming platform Netflix on Friday.

A division bench of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Manjusha Deshpande has instead asked the makers to hold a special screening of the series for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is investigating the Sheena Bora murder case.

The documentary is based on former media boss Indrani Mukerjea, accused orchestrating the murder of her 25-year-old daughter Sheena Bora in April 2012, along with her former driver Shyamvar Rai, and ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna. Peter Mukerjea, Indrani’s then-husband, is also accused in the case. Indrani Mukerjea and the other accused are currently out on bail.

The CBI had filed a petition in the high court, seeking a stay on its release till the trial in the case is complete.

Senior Advocate Ravi Kadam, appearing for Netflix, opposed the screening of the documentary, arguing that it would amount to pre-censorship. He also pointed out that there are already podcasts as well as two books on the case.

Kadam informed the court that five witnesses, including Indrani’s son Mikhail and daughter Vidhie Mukerjea from her second husband Peter Mukerjea, have been interviewed for the series. He further added that the CBI should have moved the court against the series earlier and not waited till the last moment.

The bench, however, said that the trial in the case is still on and statements of witnesses are still being recorded. “Why should CBI not be allowed to see the series. What is the difficulty in sharing the docu-series?” the bench asked while adding that the prosecution and victim in a case too have rights like the accused.

“It (release) can be deferred for a week… Heavens are not going to fall,” it added.

Following which, Kadam then made a statement to the bench that the docu-series would not be released on the streaming platform till the next hearing of the matter on February 29.

A Special Court had earlier rejected the CBI’s plea to stall the documentary series, citing a lack of legal provisions to direct the OTT platform to halt its release.